Laundry Duty
by twoleftfeet106
Summary: Relena attempts to do laundry for the first time. Written for the GW500 community -- Prompt 106: Please.


Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, Relena, or Dorothy. That's owned by the bigwigs at Bandai. All I own is the laptop this is typed on, and the muse that prodded me to write this.

This was written for the GW500 community on LiveJournal, for prompt 106 -- please. I missed the deadline by a day, never posted it, so this ficlet got stuck in a folder on my computer only to see the light of day now. Inspired by my own dorm life, and a freshman who knew absolutely nothing about washing clothes.

Onward to the ficlet!

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Laundry Duty

Relena Darlian-Peacecraft, formerly Queen Relena of the Sanc Kingdom, had a problem. A huge problem.

She beat her head against the wall in frustration. What was she going to do? She was stuck and there was no one around to help her. The annual World Summit was tomorrow and she had absolutely nothing to wear.

"I knew it was a mistake to give everybody the weekend off. Oh well, not much I can do about that now." Relena sighed. Picking up the white laundry basket, she looked at the washing machine. And looked some more.

"Let's see, there's cold water, warm water, and hot water. Hmmm..." She shrugged, setting the dial to hot water, before looking at the other assorted dials. "Light, normal, heavy, extra heavy...I'll set it on extra heavy, since it's a lot of clothes. Okay, I think I'm ready!" Relena grinned. "This isn't that hard."

"Relena?"

Relena turned to find Dorothy standing in the doorway. "Yes?"

"Are you doing laundry?" Relena nodded. "Do you know **how** to do laundry?"  
"Um, no, but it doesn't look that hard." Relena finished putting the last of her clothes into the washing machine, pushed the button to turn it on, and waited.

Nothing happened.

She pushed the button again.

The machine started beeping at her.

"Um, why is it beeping like that? Did I break the machine or something?

"Usually the machine does that if it's overloaded. Exactly how many clothes did you put in there?" Dorothy asked.

"Um, all of them I could fit in there?" Relena volunteered.

"**All** of them you could fit in there?" Dorothy asked. "No wonder the machine is acting like that."

"Why did I insist on letting the staff have a free weekend? Marianne was sure I would need her."

"There's a lesson for you, Relena. Never let all the staff have the same weekend off without making sure you won't need them." Dorothy smirked, watching the honey blonde.

"Don't I know it...Hey, Dorothy, are you busy?"

"No, not really. Why?" Dorothy answered. "Oh, no. No, no, **no**! I am not doing your laundry!"

"You don't have to **do** my laundry, just help me with it." Relena wheedled.

"I'm not falling for that one, Relena." Dorothy said, slowly backing away.

Relena just smiled and pulled out the last weapon in her arsenal. Batting her eyelashes, she continued.

"Please?"

Dorothy sighed. "Oh, fine, just this time."

Relena squealed. "Thank you, Doro!"

Dorothy just rolled her eyes and began pulling clothes out of the stuffed laundry machine. Grinning, she turned to Relena, a pair of white socks and a red blouse in hand. "Do you **want** all your clothes to turn pink or something?"

"Oh, God, no! I can't stand pink! Mother forced me to wear enough of it as a child." Relena groaned.

"Then it's time for lesson number two. Always separate your whites and colors, 'Lena. Otherwise you'll end up with pink clothing." Dorothy smirked as Relena shuddered.

"Please, no! It took me forever to convince Mother to let go of the pink. I definitely don't want to wear it again!" Relena groaned, thinking of the fuss her adopted mother had made. 

Dorothy laughed. "I remember that. I only wish I had captured it on video." She continued sorting through the clothes, dropping the whites in one pile and colors in another. Pausing, she held up a pretty dark blue dress. "'Lena?"

"Hmm?" Relena answered.

"This dress is marked 'Dry Clean Only'...and you were going to **wash** it?" Dorothy stared at Relena incredulously.

"Oops?" Relena offered. She shrank under the other girl's stare. "What? I've never done laundry before!"

"Obviously." Dorothy muttered, before setting the dress aside and continued sorting the clothes. A few minutes later, there were two piles of clothing on the floor and the washing machine was busily cleaning a third set.

"Dorothy! You're a lifesaver! What can I do to thank you?" Relena squealed in joy, throwing her arms around the stoic girl in gratitude.

"You can thank me by coming and finding me **before** you try to do your laundry next time." Dorothy sighed. "Especially if **my** stuff is in with it!" She exclaimed, shaking the cream skirt clutched in her hand.

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A/N: Yes, I know it's short. Yes, I know it's dorky. But review please! It feeds the muse, so then maybe I can post some non-crappy stuff! 


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